The LBX Show #60 - Clint Novak's new Clawcade, EAG Review, and more!

Sponsored by Intercard!
Sponsored by Alan-1!

On this week's show, Clint Novak joins us for a Guest Gab in a high-energy tour of the LBE landscape anchored by Planet Novak’s rapid claw-arcade launch, clear payout strategy, and a staff-first service model that turns frustration into wins. We then scan global openings and boutique bowling’s rise with Kevin William, EAG’s standout machines with Adam Pratt, and three concrete ways to build local awareness that lasts with Chuck DeMonte.

• FEC Summit preview, sites, and wacky golf theme
• Brass Ring Award finalists across FEC and LBE
• Planet Novak build timeline, costs, and mall choice
• Linked screens, mini-games, and trade-up economics
• Staff empowerment to create first-win momentum
• Social media that spotlights the team and mascot
• Party design, lounge layout, and expansion ideas
• Openings and closures across bowling, VR, and FECs
• Topgolf’s growth versus stagnation risk
• EAG highlights: DDR World, Go Go Ducky, Neo Shuffle
• Fewer headsets, more practical simulators and sports
• Three steps to build sustained local awareness

Subscribe and visit LBX Collective for more!

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Show Roadmap
• 1:18 FEC Summit Preview And Theme
• 3:27 Site Visits And Wacky Golf Details
• 4:38 Sponsor: Intercard Spotlight
• 5:11 Brass Ring Finalists Announced
• 5:32 Guest Gab: Planet Novak Origin
• 6:04 Mall Location And Fast Build
• 7:10 Game Sourcing And Install Hurdles
• 8:15 Linking Screens For Shared Play
• 9:05 High-End Merch And Trade-Up Logic
• 10:05 Staff Culture And First-Win Focus
• 11:15 Social Media, Mascot, And Branding
• 12:18 Parties, Layout, And Next-Door Expansion
• 13:23 Sponsor: Allen One Mention
• 13:55 Open And Shut: Market Openings
• 16:10 Boutique Bowling As Social Hub
• 18:20 Topgolf Growth And Stagnation
• 20:35 Global Chains And Small Markets
• 23:10 Closures, Rebrands, And Lessons
• 26:00 Sponsor: Radius Offer
• 26:25 Arcade Corner: EAG Highlights
• 29:05 New Rhythm, Derby, And Shuffle Tech
• 31:15 Simulators, Less VR, More Sports
• 33:05 Promo Pro Tips: Build Local Awareness
• 35:05 Wrap-Up And Next Week Preview

Transcript

SPEAKER_05: 0:01

Tuning you in now to the LBX Show. With your host, Brandon Wild. What do you buy the LBX collective? Your community to connect, engage, and inspire.

SPEAKER_06: 0:22

All right, well, welcome everybody to the LBX show for January 18th, 2026. We have a great show lined up for you today. First, we're going to dive into a very, very brief news you should know. And that's because we're going to roll into then a robust guest gab with Clint Novak. He's going to share details about his experience opening up his clockade called Planet Novak. And then we're going to hear from Kevin Williams with Open and Shut to review the opening and closing trends from last week. And then next, Adam Pratt's going to give us thoughts on EAG, which is the European amusement and gaming expo just took place this last week in London at the Excel uh center. And then they're going to do that arcade corner. And then we're going to round out the show with Provo Pro Tips. As Chuck DeMonkey, he's going to discuss three ways to build local awareness. So with that being said, let's get started with some news you should know. All right. I promise this will be the last time that we talk about IAPA FBC Summit before the actual IAP FBC Summit, which we'll talk about afterwards. But it is coming up February 1st to the 3rd in Glendale, Arizona, right across the valley, the Phoenix Valley here, about 45 minutes to an hour from where I am currently standing. I'm so incredibly fucking excited for this. It is going to be a great session. Libby Gill is the keynote speaker. She's a leadership expert and author. And the whole overall theme of everything is going to basically be um to uh play the long game and build a lasting legacy. So that is the overall concept. And you know, there's gonna actually be three locations they're visiting, and all three locations have been confirmed now. An announcement went out this week for my appa. It is going to be Fat Cats, uh, KTR, which is uh kids that rip, it's an indoor like skate park place, um, and an active play adventure park, and then Pecan Lake Entertainment. And so excited to go visit, although I've been to all those, but excited to go with all of you and visit those places. And then the uh thing that I'm also looking forward to is the wacky golf event on Sunday. It's a charity event that goes towards the IAPA Foundation for the FEC Foundation Scholarship. And um, this is uh this is a great way to raise money for uh the FEC scholarship. And if you're not familiar with that is, let's uh talk about that. And you can find any number of people from my app, or we can talk about that when we meet up there on Sunday. So looking forward to that. And also keep in mind, if you aren't familiar with this, there's a dress, like a like a dress contest or whatever you want to call it, costume contest. Um, and uh it always happens the first Sunday night. It's at the opening reception, and this year's theme is going to be uh uh golf, wacky golf, golf, whatever you want to do, like anything the golf theme. So the a couple of years back it was a caddyshack theme, so that was very specific, but it is gonna be a golf theme. Um, so anyway, that is the FEC summit. Again, it is like two weeks from now, so I'm not gonna talk about it next week because it's you know, if you haven't booked your travel and your rooms and everything else, then you're too late. You're not too late, you can still book it, but it's just uh, you know, I'm not gonna talk about it next week um because we're gonna have enough other things to talk about. Specifically, we're going to talk about the announcement of the brass ring award top FEC and LBE finalists. And I'm gonna have a very special guest on next week. Uh, and that uh we are going to talk about uh um what made these guys the finalists. Like, why are they unique? Why did they stand out? And so we have Hoopaloopa Istanbul. This is for the top FEC finals for the brass ring award. It's Hoopaloopa Istanbul, Spine Ninjas HQ, which is in Vegas, and then Hall You Need. Um, and so those are the top FEC finalists. Again, we're gonna break these down next week on a special segment, guest gab segment, to uh talk about one of the judges will be coming on and walking us through uh their, you know, how the debates that all went into it. And then the top LBE finalists, location-based entertainment finalists are FG Big Wheel, Deutschland Museum, and 60 to Escape Woodfield. So those are the finalists. Obviously, the the final winner has already been chosen. I don't know what they are because I wasn't a part of the committee this year making those uh those judges or grades, but we will find out at IAP Honors coming up in just a few months. So that is the FEC uh brass ring awards and the LBE brass ring awards, and uh excited to uh talk about that. All right. Well, that is uh it for News You Should Know. Coming up after the quick break, we are going to dive right into the guest gab with Clint Novak. 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SPEAKER_07: 5:13

And if you are already part of a global family of customers, they hope you will become one too.

SPEAKER_06: 5:31

All right. Well, Clint, welcome to uh welcome back to GuestCab. It's good to have you back, man. It's been a little while. Thanks for having me. I'm excited. Yeah, yeah. So you have been busy the uh these last few months. Well, actually, um well, yeah, we're gonna hear all about the story in the timeline, but uh you've been busy building a new uh a new uh what are we gonna call it? A claw store?

SPEAKER_03: 5:54

Uh I call it a uh claw arcade. Uh yeah, it's uh uh we opened in um uh late October, uh early November. Um it's a concept we've been working on for four to five months. I mean, as you guys already know, uh with A, I was traveling all over the U.S. uh visiting locations all over the place, 250 locations in two years. Um only three or four of those were actual claw arcades. Um, but I really fell in love with the concept because it was a small kind of niche that has been traveling over from Asia and hitting uh the markets pretty hard here now. I mean, they're popping up everywhere. Yeah, um and I really just I love the concept of just having an arcade where people could go, it's all merchandisers, and you win a lot. Like you uh walk out with bags full of merchandise. And I really liked the idea of of winners and creating that kind of environment. And so um I had a friend of mine who uh is not part of the industry, best friend. Uh his name's Nate, and uh I've been pitching him ideas forever uh on like, hey, we can do this or we can do that. And one day I pitched him on this this claw, uh uh claw arcade idea, and he jumped on it. He was like, This sounds like a great opportunity, it's not a lot of money. Um, you know, we we we did some research, talked to some other people who own some claw arcades, and uh we uh we settled in on about$300,000 is what it would cost us. And uh and we did some things with our claw arcade that probably uh would cost more money than uh if you you know did it did it a different way. Uh so uh you could probably even do it less than that. Uh but first I figured we would go through, I'll kind of give you the idea of um how quickly we did our build, and then uh I can talk about what Planet Novak is and why we're different than other uh claw arcades. So yeah, perfect. Let's do it. So this is uh the mall space that uh that we have at the Spotsylvania Town Center. Um, and this is also uh all of the clawcades that I've been to uh do not exist in a mall environment, they're like in a strip mall or in a standalone. Um, and I really I wanted that transient traffic walking by, and so I was like, okay, let's talk to the mall. We started talking to them in April. We secured the space. There was already a vendor in there, um, but we also had to wait for games to be delivered. We ordered all of our games through Eunice. Uh well, we ordered them through Betson. Uh, they're all Eunice games. Uh, they're gonna take um uh 60 days to get here. So we ordered them in July uh with the hope of having them in mid-October. Um, so this is the space uh after it was vacated by the clothing store. Uh me excited about the uh cosmic clockade, which was the original name uh coming to the mall. Uh at this point, too, I was uh I was a silent partner in the uh in the festivities. So uh with A, they didn't want me to talk about my involvement with the arcade. So uh I didn't uh I didn't uh publicly announce it until uh after uh I was separated from A. Uh with the clothing store, there was shelving and stuff everywhere that we then were responsible for removing. Uh so we had all of that done. Uh, we took over the space October 3rd is when we actually took over the space. Uh my business partner, Nate's in the middle there. Uh, we hired a director of operations, Justin, who is uh uh worked with me at Funland. Uh the idea was me and Nate were gonna work full-time. Justin was gonna be full-time at the Clockade, and he was gonna be the guy expanding uh and and handling all of the day-to-day operations while me and Nate were going to expand the company from mall to mall. Uh location here, uh getting ready all painted. This is our our color scheme, uh purple, pink, yellow. Um, we kept the floors the same, so we didn't do anything with the floors. We didn't do it really anything with the ceiling or lighting. We had to do some patchwork, but that was about it. Um, and all of this happened within two weeks. So the electric, uh electrician came in, did their work, the painters, contractors all work together at the same time. Um, and uh some of the free labor we have here, the kids running around. Of course, uh we're setting up furniture that day, so they got to help us make the couch. Uh, we have these uh we looked up ugly uh orange furniture, and this is what we got on Amazon.

SPEAKER_06: 10:16

So and you you specifically wanted ugly orange furniture?

SPEAKER_03: 10:20

Ugly orange furniture. We almost kind of wanted like a retro theme, uh, but uh still have it like our color scheme is like, like I said, orange, purple. Uh, and so we wanted to fit in that color scheme, and and we came up with some pretty unique furniture. Uh, you can see the couches there in the background um as the games start arriving. And uh, and yeah, so the games arrived uh a week later than we were anticipating. Um, and so we probably would have been able to open a week earlier if the games would have arrived on time, but they arrived a week later than we were hoping due to transit. Uh uh, you know, they had to go from uh somewhere in Asia over to uh I think Canada or US and then uh and then to us uh through Betson.

SPEAKER_06: 11:02

Um what time like where where are we now in the year? So it's is it's still in October?

SPEAKER_03: 11:08

Yeah, this is October. I would say the week the week of the 26th. I think the 26th is like a Friday. Um the games arrived in on a Monday, and we opened that Friday. So these are the games arriving on a Monday. Uh Amusement Connect was already installed on the system, uh, on the games because we did the White Glove service through uh Betson. So I mean, they even hired movers to push the games in. So we literally did nothing. We we just said, you know, put the game there, put the game there. Um, and they had uh they had it all under control when they uh come to bring everything in. Um the games arriving. This is the this is the exciting part here is when uh when it starts getting real, uh all the games in, and then we started putting them into position. Uh, you know, you have to open them up and take all the uh stuff out. So that's what the technicians are working on. Our guys are working on furniture there in the front, uh, some other stuff that we had to build. Uh, it was a three-day process for Betson to install all the games and get them in there, and it wasn't perfect. There were some issues uh that we had to work out with Eunice um after the fact that the the Betson crew were just unable to uh to take care of it. It was basically all these TV screens linked together uh to make one big game. So when one wins, they all blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And you can play uh what they call mini games. Uh there's a tap game where uh for 15 seconds everybody's gonna tap the button as fast as they can, and the person who taps it the most wins two free games uh on that claw that they're at. And so um, but in order to do that, all of the games have to tie together, network together, all of that kind of stuff. And so that was the issue that we uh hit uh right away is uh just getting those games all tied together.

SPEAKER_06: 12:51

Yeah, I will say, I mean, what I do like the fact that you did tie them all together. You you go to actually some other claw arcades and they're not linked together, right? They're and they're all independent, and I think it's a big differentiator to be able to link those all and have the unified experience and unified brand going across all of them.

SPEAKER_03: 13:09

Yeah, and I mean there's other cool things that you can do with the TV screens. You can put birthday party messages up there with the child's face, so you can take a picture of the child, have it go up on the TV screens for their birthday. Um, you can obviously it says unboxing these pictures, but we've now changed it to Planet Novak, so it's girls planet Novak. Um, and there's an opportunity for you to put some other pictures up there as well uh during its just rotation of um, you know, uh uh it's it's daily rotation. Um you're paying a premium uh with when you go with Unis, because Unis is going to be a more expensive uh arcade system. But uh, like I said, we really like the idea of having that linkage. And uh we could go probably with another operator that would be less flashy uh but cost less uh uh for all the claws that we did, and uh that would bring down your costs significantly, maybe another 15,000 or so. Um if you went with another uh another operator uh with the uh different manufacturer. So um again, just us uh putting the final touches uh the games together. You can start seeing the redemption counter kind of coming together here. Uh my wife and uh my uh my uh business partner's uh mother-in-law uh putting all the candy in. This is another unique thing we did is we decided we're only gonna put high-end candy in the redemption case. So this is all candy that at costs a dollar or more um for you to purchase. Uh, so then you're obviously passing that on um to the um uh to the uh consumer um when they're uh uh trading up for that product. Um and then the rest of the trade-up is uh plush. Uh so this is the beginning. There's very little plush up there right there. Now we have a lot of plush, uh, but that's the opening team there for uh uh Cosmic Clock. Hey, uh grand opening. Uh we uh I I've lived in the area for quite a while, so I had a lot of friends uh who uh jumped in to uh say, hey, we want to make this an amazing opening. So um uh my friend Casey here and her daughter did this crazy balloon arch over the uh entrance here that stayed there for a week. They did that free of charge for us. Um you can see the line getting ready to come in. The first hundred people got a uh$25 play card. So you can see the line of uh people getting ready to come in. Uh once opening day, you know, this is uh the the crowd of people coming in playing the games. We had a DJ there playing, uh DJ D Lac. Uh he was a friend of mine who uh pitched in and helped us out. Uh uh Ivy, uh who does face painting. Uh she's done a lot of face painting with us in the past. Uh I love this. The the the Clint Novak banana beanie, I guess. I don't know uh what that is, but but there we go. And uh and yeah, and so one thing I don't think we talked about, uh and maybe you guys have already talked about it before, uh the clockade concept or the claw room concept of trading up.

SPEAKER_06: 16:12

Um so all of our have you explained that? So I'm glad you're bringing that up. Uh we have talked about it in the past, but uh yeah, give us a refresher on what that looks like to trade up.

SPEAKER_03: 16:20

Basically, we uh all of our games are programmed to pay out at a 25% payout. So we want, or not all of our games, but all of the um uh the claw games that the merchandise is trade-upable. Um and so they're paid out at a 25%. Uh, we want a winner every eight to ten times. So we programmed it so that whatever the cost of the plush is, uh, plus the the whatever you charge for the game is gonna equal out eight to ten times, it's gonna pay out. Um, we want people to walk out with bags of stuff, you know? And uh so what they can do then is they can win the stuff that's in the uh claw and then go to the redemption counter and trade up for other items because basically that plush has a value. Uh, we give it a value on the on the claw that says this is 400 stars, this is 250 stars, and then go up to the counter and trade up. And we have everything from Xboxes, uh Nintendo Switch 2 or 3, 3, whatever the newest switch is, we got that. Um, and then we have a whole bunch of bigger plush that you can trade up. One of the things that uh uh uh if you have Toy Factory Pokemon plush, you're not allowed to put that in a claw or merchandiser, but you tend trade up for it, so you can put it at your redemption counter and have people trade up for it, which is one of our most popular trade-up items, is Pokemon. Um that's also why we wanted to put the candy in there. We wanted something that people could just walk up with one plush and trade it in for one or two more pieces of candy. Um, and so that's why we put that in there. Um, if you trade up, the way the trade-up works percentage-wise, is we actually then gain five percent uh because of the way it's structured and paid off. So the redemption counter is basically 20% payout if you trade up, and so we regain five percent of the uh the pay play that you uh that you had uh going into it. So um and then we have some bigger games, the the cut to wins, which are the fantastic prizes. Uh we put some pretty big stuff in there that's gonna be at a 20% payout. Um, and then our blind boxes and such in our over the edge, that's gonna be 25% payout. Um, and so yeah, I mean we want to create a an uh environment of winners, and that's obviously what everybody wants to do when you have a redemption counter. Um, but I think we take it a little more seriously and push it a little more. Um the thing that stands out most for us is our culture and our employees. Uh, our teammate or our team members, we only have four people who work for us, um, but they are every review we've received talks about how great our staff is because they go out there, they interact with you, they tell you how everything works, but they're also watching because there's nothing more frustrating than buying a$25 play card and then playing some games. And they're all, you know, obviously they're programmed to pay out every eight to ten times. So one, you could go up and win the first time, right? But there's others that you could go, and if you don't know when you tap one a couple of times, and then you move on to the next one a couple of times. So these staff members are watching all of that. And if they see the frustration starting to build, they walk over and they're like, Hey, let's win this prize, let's try this again. Let's say so. They're tapping. If it if it doesn't work a couple of times for them tapping, they're like, let's rearrange this a little bit. So they open it up and they like put the guy like right on the thing, so they just knock it off into the thing, which hurts our percentages. You know, it's gonna bring up our percentage a little bit. But again, we don't want that once you get that first win, you're you're going around and and you get used to it and you're gonna start playing uh and the rejection of that those losses uh are are are. Overcome by the amount of wins that you're getting, but getting the first win, if we see that frustration building, we want to make sure we go over and we're taking care of the guests.

SPEAKER_06: 20:08

Yeah. I think that's huge. Um, I mean, not only like the fact that you have just hired good people, but that you've trained them to be on the lookout for that and then even be creative and be giving them the license to go in and like again, like make it so easy that all they have to do is like knock it down into the you know, into the chute. Like that is like the knowing that they can go and do that themselves and and they have that agency to do that, I think is uh it's huge. And guess satisfaction is way more important, especially as you're first starting out. Yeah, uh, and especially as somebody's first like first experience maybe inside of a clockade, like the first time they're they're starting out, you want them to be able to have a great experience and really understand how it works.

SPEAKER_03: 20:51

Yeah, and uh I mean, all of these guys I've worked with in the past, uh they're uh Funland elites, and uh uh you know, we knew we're gonna pay a premium. You know, we're paying basically uh they were all managers from Funland, so they're all people who uh were higher up there. And uh, you know, before Five Star took over at Funland, my belief was always um empower your employees, let them you know make decisions. If if uh you know a guest came in and they were unhappy about um you know a policy, uh, you know, we have a no refund policy, but I always said give the refund. I'm never gonna be mad at you for taking care of the guest or giving the refund or avoiding something bad. Um and uh and that that also goes to turn if they decide that they're not going to give the refund and the guest gets upset and they come down there. I'm never gonna reverse the decision of the employee unless it was a very terrible decision. But it's like if you go down there and they're like, you know, I decided that this is the stance that I'm taking and it's a policy procedure, I'm gonna stand by the employee because uh the second you uh go around and say, Oh, you know, I'm gonna go ahead and give you this refund, and the employee said, I'm not giving you the refund. Now the employee just feels like, well, they really don't have the ability to make those decisions because you're just going around them and uh and and and giving the guests what they want. And uh, and so, you know, I I think a lot of that you know shines here. They're happy to be there, they're having fun. You know, it's it's a fun new experience. Um, and you know, you have to pay that premium to uh really get them to uh jump and engage the guests. Uh the other thing we recently did is we turned over our social media to them and uh and said, you know, have some fun with it. Uh I want that I I told them I want you guys to be famous. I want you guys, I want people to come into our location and say, I saw you guys on TikTok, I saw you guys on Facebook. Uh, you know, I want them to be excited about uh the the personalities uh that they are uh that you know they're they're creating. And uh I'm trying to pull up, I'm gonna see if I can pull up a couple of the things that they've created here because I just I think they're a lot of people.

SPEAKER_06: 23:01

Well, and while you're pulling that up too, I'd love to, I just want to show off this website. So, you know, I've I've I'm sure you've heard many of my rants on just terrible websites uh for attractions. And like, look, um, I think you've uh have a phenomenal site here. This this op this this like video at the bumper, like very well produced, shows like tons of excitement and energy. Like it's it's it's like frankly, it's one of the best um best videos explaining the uh location that I've seen in general, let alone um a shopping mall clockade. And so like you've just done a phenomenal job here, really giving people a sense for like the experience they're gonna have. And then, you know, the other thing I really like about what you've done is it doesn't feel like sometimes you go into these clockades and they're just jammed to the walls with rows and rows of claw machines, and there's very little space, it feels very crowded. You've done a good job with coming in, even having the furniture in the middle with the rug, it feels welcoming and inviting, like the color scheme is great and it all ties together. So, anyway, I just want I wanted to call that call that out because again, um I I rip on a lot of sites often, and um, and you've done a phenomenal job here. And uh, if anybody wants to take a look at a really well done uh uh like in general, a well done site, uh you can check out planetnovac.com. Um so I just wanted to show that while you were pulling something else up. And then um I also want to know a little bit about this, uh about your your mascot, the monkey. So does the monkey have a name?

SPEAKER_03: 24:35

Yes. So first I want to say uh you you're giving me all this credit for this website. Uh I have to pass this down. Uh Oliver is the person who built our website. Uh he is amazing. He works in the industry. Uh he has his own uh claw company in Florida. He also works uh uh with a vendor that we all know, but I'm not sure I'm allowed to say, so I'm just gonna say he works uh works behind the scenes as well. Uh he started with me at Funland. And again, it's these these reputations. I I like to think that that this is a sign that I may have been a good manager, is because these people stick with me well after they've left Funland. And uh so he was my you know my branding guy. He built our website at Funland. And you know, when I turned around and said, I need my you know consulting website done, we need Planet Novak, he didn't he didn't he didn't send us a quote, he didn't ask for money and just started doing it, you know. And uh those are the relationships that it's like I can't, you know, I can't stress enough that uh, you know, you you once you build that culture of people around you, not just in your company, but just the people you spend time with that are willing to jump in there and be like, yep, I'm helping you out. I'm jumping in there and doing that. So um, you know, my friend Carl uh made the logo and did all of that. Uh Oliver did the uh website design. Uh Tawan Brown did the video that you were talking about. Uh Tawan is heavily involved with um uh uh Devin Olston Media, which they do a lot of the media for SeaWorld, Dollywood, um uh uh the Bush Gardens. So they're in a lot of uh amusement parks doing that. And he just happens to be one of my best friends who lives in the uh in the area here, and uh and I got him kind of started in that path down the amusement industry video. Uh and so you know, again, I call him up. We need a video, you know, he gives me a date, we fill it with extras and and get a great video done. So uh, but talking about the mascot Cosmo, um, we're uh in the process of getting everything ready, ordered, uh building the brand, and uh we are looking for furniture for the uh location. And uh we look up the first thing we looked up was ugly purple furniture because we purple is one of our colors, and this banana um uh banana beanbag banana chair came up and I sent it into our group uh and I said we're getting the the beanbag banana chair. And uh co-owner Nate says, uh, well, why would we do that? That has nothing to do with our our our our theme. And I said, Well, it has everything to do with our theme because our monkey mascot would love this banana chair. And he goes, We have a monkey mascot, and then I just had AI generate an astronaut monkey, uh, which then became Cosmo. Uh, and it was a joke. It was like us just saying, Oh, yeah, oh yeah, Cosmo would love the banana chair. And we had pictures of you know Cosmo riding a banana in space, like it's a space thing, and all this stuff. And and uh and it all stemmed down from this banana chair we found on uh Amazon, which we do have if you come to our location.

SPEAKER_06: 27:37

Oh, I saw in one of your pictures I saw the purple banana chair.

SPEAKER_03: 27:40

Yeah, ugly banana chair. It's there, it was the first first thing we ordered other than the games. So um, and uh and yeah, and so Cosmo kind of turned into at first, it was kind of my alter ego because again, I wasn't allowed to talk about the fact that I was involved with this project, and so everything was Cosmo based. When you would reach out to you know our Facebook page, Cosmo would be the one responding back to you. Um, all of the posts were being done by Cosmo when we first started out. And this and this, you know, even friends like DJ D Lac, he messaged us early on and said, I uh I want to help out, I want to be a part of the grand opening. And Cosmo responded back to him with details about him that he wouldn't like he would he was like, How does Cosmo know who I am? I know who DJ D Lac is, he's my friend, but he didn't know I was involved with them. So when he was like, Oh, I love what you do at the friend dance games and getting people hyped up, we would love to have you there. He's like, How does how does Cosmo the monkey know this? Like, uh, and later on when I was able to tell him I was involved, then he tells me this long story about how you know how crazy it was that uh you know Cosmo uh knew all that stuff. But uh like I said, as we uh now we have our team together, you know, Cosmo is still part of our brand and he's still there and is still doing posts, but we want the team to now shine. We want the team to be uh the staple of really why people are gonna be coming to um uh coming to uh uh planet at Novak. So I'm trying to pull up uh I wanted to show some of the videos that uh they put together here. I gotta share the screen here.

SPEAKER_06: 29:24

Um yeah, by the way, too, for um those of you who have not looked up, you know, you're listening and you like don't do what I do immediately is like go look up Planet Novak and uh you know want to get that like 21 five-star reviews. You have a perfect five-star review on Google, out of and that's out of 21 reviews, too. So it's not like you know, three people who were all your friends just went and left you know five-star reviews. This is uh, you know, it's it's a legit five-star review.

SPEAKER_03: 29:47

Um, so you know, again, when you're when you're reading these machines, and when you're reading these, it's all very friendly and helpful staff. You know, celebrated my nine, uh, my nine-year-old, uh, my son's nine-year-old birthday party yesterday. VIP treatment from the moment he walked in the door. Um, you know, staff was amazing. And you can see, you know, this is uh James with the nine-year-old. They're over there. He's he's teaching them how to win this game. You know, he that they're they we want, you know, every time we play a mini tap game, we play it for the birthday child. We're like, everybody give it up, let's get the birthday child over here, and they get to select the game first, and then they get to play the game. But yeah, everything is about how great um the uh the uh the staff is. And so nope, nope, they didn't say anything about the staff right there. There we go. But so everything, and and yeah, and and so this is the other problem. Uh, I love this, I love this problem. Uh a lot of fun. Man with long hair is always very nice and helpful. So that told us what do we need? We need name tags. So we need tags, we're getting name tags for everybody. Because uh people started describing the employees who were helping them, and uh and the employees, I don't think we're taking offense to it, but they're like sometimes they all look kind of the same. They're all tall, they all have facial hair, some is longer hair, some is shorter hair, but it's like uh so it's like, well, wait a minute, which one are they talking about? So um, but these are some of the things that I wanted to just show off as uh some of the ideas that they had when it came to um uh some of the social media stuff.

SPEAKER_05: 31:25

So hey guys, how many questions do you think I have?

SPEAKER_03: 31:31

Like six or seven. Are you able to hear those? I don't know. Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 31:38

I can definitely hear the audio, yeah. Yeah, all right, guys. So we have a claw that's empty and we need to fill it. No bad ideas. What do we got? I have an idea. Accos.

SPEAKER_00: 31:57

And then I'm on hiding back.

SPEAKER_06: 32:10

Oh, it opens up too. It was yeah, for those of you who are just listening, that was a uh it laid out a bunch of Taco Bell tacos in the claw machine, picked up one of them and actually went down the chute, but then opened up inside at the bottom. Uh, but it's uh it's pretty good.

SPEAKER_03: 32:28

Yeah, uh we had we had new employee. Let's put it on. Put one on. The last suit you'll ever wear.

SPEAKER_00: 32:35

You dress only in attire specially sanctioned by MIB Special Services.

SPEAKER_03: 32:40

Edward. So I just like uh, you know, we we drifted away from the Cosmo stuff, and they're they're out. And Cosmo still does the the PR posting. You know, he's the one who's promoting uh different things that are coming up. Um but when it comes to uh you know the videos and stuff, I just I told the staff I want you guys to be superstars, I want you guys to have fun with it, don't insult the guests, have fun with each other, um, and uh and just you know do stuff that uh are is gonna get views and people are gonna be like, I need to go see these guys. Or when they do go, they're like, hey, I saw you on Facebook, you know.

SPEAKER_06: 33:16

So yeah, that's awesome. That's so great. And uh, you know, I do like that you have uh you do have dedicated parties as well. Um, you know, I know you you mentioned that the nine-year-old came in to celebrate the party, but you actually have party packages and they get exclusive access to use that middle center area, the lounge, I think you call it. Um, but again, you know, just good naming, dedicated. You get a dedicated mission commander. Um, you have your party package for cosmic conquest party, VIP expedition party. So anyway, uh, you know, very well thought through and um you know appreciate uh yeah, appreciate you walking us through all of this.

SPEAKER_03: 33:51

No, no, it's been it's been a blast. Uh, you know, we we have a space that's right next door to us that is now open, and we're toying around with the idea of taking that space over and putting in a retro arcade that can be unmanned that we don't have to supervise. We're right next door. So we could open, close it, clean it. And um we're thinking about moving the birthday parties over there because that would give us a little more room. Uh, but it would also give us if we had retro games, that would give us something that we can give uh people an hour to play, you know, as a part of their birthday party, and then go over and play the claws because uh a claw arcade birthday party is very quick, it's it's an hour, and you know, you you get if you get$35 on a play card, you can spend that, you know, in 15-20 minutes.

SPEAKER_09: 34:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 34:37

Um, and so uh, you know, that's why we play the tap games to try to slow them down from uh from spending all the money on their card right away, um and still give them the trade-up and you know all the fun stuff that they get to do. Um, but then they also, you know, they bring their cake in. We don't have a kitchen, so we let them bring whatever food they want in. Uh we'll set up, we bring have plates and napkins and stuff that we we help them uh you know with their uh their their own catering. Um, you know, and we tell them, I mean, we're right next to Costco. So if you have a Costco membership, go over there, get two pizzas, come on over. Costco cake is like the best cake ever. So yeah, I mean, yeah, they're gonna do it better than we're gonna do it, and we don't have a kitchen anyway. So uh uh bring it on over and we'll we'll be the fun creators.

SPEAKER_06: 35:20

Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. Well, uh Clint, thank you so much for walking us through your planet Novak, uh, you know, like claw claw arcade experience and what you've done over the last few months. I know you've been super busy. You're getting ready to be super busy again. Um, so I'm excited we'll have you back on. Uh, maybe we'll maybe we'll restart the road trip uh segment. We'll see.

SPEAKER_03: 35:42

I'm hitting the road, so uh we're gonna have to start talking about the facilities uh I'm visiting again. I'm super excited about that because uh yeah, I really that's that's the part of the job that I really enjoy is meeting new people, seeing their facilities, see what they do that's unique, and then uh being able to share their story because every operator has such a unique reason or rhyme as to why they're in the industry and how they got here and what they're doing and their view of it. And so uh I I just I love getting on the road and visiting places.

SPEAKER_06: 36:11

Yeah. Well, it's clear, obviously, with you visiting all these places, you take the best little tidbits of everything and you've put it into Planet Novak. And I know you'll continue to do that and uh and continue to improve your space. And um, so anyway, Clint, it's been great to have you on this guest gad. We'll see you on the next one.

SPEAKER_03: 36:28

All right, have a good one.

SPEAKER_06: 36:38

Whether it's perfectly forced to do this, like something like that, it's active. Alan One is something to every venue in our case for like your guests. This game is also a capitalist scores.

SPEAKER_07: 36:58

Alan Dash 1.com to learn more. That's Alan Dash One.com.

SPEAKER_06: 37:05

All right, well, that was awesome. Absolutely love having Clint on the show whenever he's able to make it down, uh, you know, quote unquote, down to the show. And uh yeah, I'm really looking forward to restarting Road Trip with Clint Novak. Those are always a lot of fun because he goes to a lot of different places and we get to see uh just his take on the different places that he's uh the different venues and places he's visiting. And so uh looking forward to restarting that once he hits the road. Uh but until then, we've still got all the rest of our show to go. So coming up next, we've got open and shut with Kevin Williams.

SPEAKER_04: 37:43

Hey, a big hello and welcome to open and shut. Uh I'm okay, Brandon. You okay?

SPEAKER_06: 37:50

Yeah, doing great. Doing great. Back in lovely Phoenix. So always love that.

SPEAKER_04: 37:55

Yeah. So I would say that it's uh a reasonable number of uh venues, very similar to last week. Um I get the feeling, as I keep on saying, that this may be the kind of number that we're going to be dealing with for the next couple of weeks going forward. I know we've got a spurt in February uh to look forward to as well as in March, but let's get there before we start counting our chickens, as it were. Again, if I zip past one of these, uh please tip the pause for more details. Straight in, of course. Our friends at Sandbox start uh the new year with a bang. They've had uh, I think two facilities open uh as we've entered January, bringing them up to about 74 facilities. This latest one adding to the mix of Texas.

SPEAKER_06: 38:49

Wow. Well, yeah, Houston's been Houston has a little bit of news so far uh this this week too. There's a number of things that have popped up in Houston this week. But uh yeah, you know, the 5,500 square feet is what gets me. I mean, it's it's a small, it's a small box. So my guess is they don't have the robot, the drink robot there in this location, if that's the size of their square footage.

SPEAKER_04: 39:11

So I think it's two arenas uh and VIP area according to the info that was pushed uh uh pushed towards me. Um it is going into a retail unit as you can see, so it is what it is. Our friends at uh F1 Arcade, uh they opened their uh latest American facility. They're uh you know, Atlanta is very popular uh with the uh the racing community to start with. So, you know, one would assume that it's going to be dropping into a friendly locality. Um 15,000 square, the the usual sixty to seventy numbers of simulators, so it seems to be following a uh a proven formula or formula that they feel comfortable with at this stage in time. understanding that they're also just undertaking a a change in their management structure.

SPEAKER_06: 40:06

Yeah. Yeah. I mean they uh continue to you know it's interesting they're not open yet right so they or at least not on their according to their web they might be open now but according to their website they say they're not open until February 6th but yet they already have three Google reviews so I don't know what's what's going on.

SPEAKER_04: 40:23

Someone can sell their robots uh to hold back on its praise yet so yeah I mean the the three Google reviews are actually really interesting.

SPEAKER_06: 40:32

Um so it's more like they ended up using the Google reviews to like have a like a little flame battle so between some of the users. So I don't know what's going on there. But they're five stars at least so it's not going to hurt them.

SPEAKER_04: 40:44

I wouldn't recommend doing that type of stuff. If people want to do that around your facility so be it but don't don't get engaged in that type of stuff.

SPEAKER_06: 40:53

Yeah always ends badly moving on and uh the UK saw another star pins this is you know the the boutique or the lighter boutique version uh of uh the chains uh offerings we uh actually uh have some news about uh uh professionals at play their operation uh coming up in sound off but the the issue uh I think that we're kind of seeing and especially with what I was doing uh over the last couple of days we're seeing that the boutique bowling facilities are really establishing themselves as the gateway into the competitive socializing environment and uh the multi-use or uh mixed entertainment experiences are sort of uh using the bowling facility as the hub and then using uh that central core to offshoot their amusement offering or their um their shuffleboard or their AR darts like every facility has but it is interesting to see that this star pins uh brand of uh the professionals that play operation is you know heading in a more boutique direction yeah it is interesting it's also interesting that you know obviously the professionals that play the are the guys behind Roxy Leisure and all the different Roxy venues um but they actually include so they have a pins leisure category and they include star pins and king pins in this and so they have two different models all fit underneath this like pins leisure so like bowling leisure driven bowling anchored leisure driven um venues and so I you know I always find it interesting when they start to separate their brands but um you know again maybe this is the way of doing what we often talk about here which is separating your brands based on your attraction mix so that there's not confusion if I go to a king pins I know what a kingpins is going to be and if I go to a star pins I know what that's going to be instead of I go to a Roxy you know a Roxy pins or whatever.

SPEAKER_04: 42:58

You know I was in a uh Roxley lanes recently and they they are predominantly more string uh duck pin bowling uh kind of facilities with other entertainment I would actually argue that the Star Pins was created to separate itself from venues that have gone through used a full size bowling uh experience and had been updated to fit their design but we'll have to wait and see when they've got more facilities out this is only the second of the star pins that they've rolled out so far. Topgov uh an interesting anniversary for them their 100th US site has now thrown its doors open uh from the information made available to us again in Texas uh that's it it's just a shooting range um a shooting range with their tech infused ball uh technology really um they haven't added anything new to the mix they haven't uh really tried to embrace any of the competitive socializing opportunities um I think that they are living under the uh aspirations that if it ain't broke don't fix it um though I would argue that uh after the sale from Callaway there may be some tinkering needed under the hood.

SPEAKER_06: 44:15

Yeah and their numbers show that their shit's broken. So I don't uh you know I just don't understand that this continues to be uh absolutely mind-boggling to me that they continue to develop and build these sites without making any changes whatsoever to their mix or their s or their size structure or whatever.

SPEAKER_04: 44:32

Maybe if you find franchisees um game enough to uh take on your cookie cutter operation you're not going to encourage them to change it uh they also may be mindful of what happened with Dave and Busters when you allow someone tinkering in the kitchen with the menu. So uh we will have to wait and see. Personal opinion uh I think that at some point in time they'll have to have a male Cooper regarding where they are concerning their situation, the downturn in their facility sales and their food menu as well as their attention. And at that point when they admit that then we could see quite a considerable change in the operation moving through the game and Kingpin this time in Australia really what we're looking at is the continuation of the boutique bowling experience from an Australian point of view which I feel is a high value or level of themality and uh and development from these sites clearly aiming at their uh 20 uh 19 to 40 age group window um and creating quite a nice social mix there from uh the the photographs that I have uh regarding the opening of this facility uh it looks really well appointed and again that is something that many of these boutique bowling venues are going to have to consider yeah I mean the the renders only but I mean they're pretty high fidelity renders so far and it does it looks it looks beautiful inside um and the the lighting above like it you can't see it in one of these but they have this really interesting ceiling lighting fixture that's uh just provides a nice ambient glow um to the space so it's uh yeah it's interesting they have a trophy room some sports viewing areas and and as well as like other you know pool tables and and such so it really is uh yeah it's pretty nice it is a level of engagement with your audience that uh makes it a comfortable you know the the phrase the third space this definitely does fall into that uh definition yeah uh and if you haven't got a uh a really cool themality then allow the Lord to supply it to you the uh a uh a church in Pennsylvania has been converted into an arcade uh yes uh an interesting concept uh I'm sure the acoustics are phenomenal in it when all the machines are turned on uh it it feels to be a labor of love uh the the development by this uh this group uh towards it there's a hundred machines in there and about 30 pinball tables I think there's a little bit more than 30 pinball tables in there and they're also proposing to have quite a heavy social engagement you know it's not just an arcade but it is going to be a social hub venue.

SPEAKER_06: 47:37

I'm looking forward uh to seeing some video when the DJ's going live uh uh about how well uh the facility worked but we wish them the best of luck in this concert yeah I mean look they have a really interesting piece of real estate like well what do we put in here I've seen some very interesting things go into churches uh one of my favorite taco uh taco spots in Phoenix is uh you know they call it the taco guild and it's in an old church with stained glass windows and it's just absolutely beautiful phenomenal tacos great drinks um but the thing that gets me you know is when you see the font um and their their logo you very clearly ripping on the Pac-Man um you know font type and logo and I just I don't I think they'll probably float under the radar but it is a bit of a a bit of a a stretch or a uh you know they're taking a little bit of a chance in in using some of that typeface.

SPEAKER_04: 48:29

I I I get the feeling that they are doing uh doing this uh on minimal funding uh so uh you have to do what you have to do and uh it is easy to get that get your hands on that font key Dave and Busters uh continuing their uh uh openings but franchise V uh in Mexico uh from again uh I've got renderings and some pictures of what's going on here I'm uh it looks like it is a form factor traditional Dave and Busters approach I'm not seeing any uh social bays in this particular design but I am seeing pool tables uh and foosball tables in unique locations and I'm not sure uh how much the franchisee has had some uh opportunity to improve the mix uh or of the layout but you know it puts it into perspective that uh you know we we have about 178 facilities out there you know with a large percentage of them being franchisees and we're seeing very big motion on the Mexican Venezuelan the Saudi Arabian and we will be soon reporting on an Australian Dayton busters opening soon.

SPEAKER_06: 49:45

Do we know is it a master franchisee that is driving the growth through Mexico now? Did what do they do they buy up the entire Mexican country um or is this individual franchisees going into you know opening up in individual cities?

SPEAKER_04: 49:59

I think it is regionally owned so you buy regional packets within the Mexican uh diaspora I am not entirely sure if they have now transferred over to a central or master franchisee operation at this point. Okay. Flip out continuing their rollout 80 chains in I think it's more like 82 chains in I'd have to go back to our database to double check.

SPEAKER_06: 50:25

But anyway uh Livingstone in Scotland uh gets a brand new facility 2000 square that's nothing to sneeze at obviously uh we have the inflatable activities we have uh you know very active entertainment components to this as well as some amusement yeah it's a flip out the search engine's a little slow today is it no no I've got it up here I've got it up it's um but it's you know it's a standard flip for those you know who aren't familiar with flip outs there's you know Ninja Tag which is somewhat unique to them they have uh bouldering they have uh you know spin zone bumper cars inflatables and um and like a parkour area but it's it's very focused on the 12 and under crowd uh definitely it's not meant for adult amusement whatsoever I don't think so uh though having some amusement machines in there may be done to give uh uh some of the guardians something to do while they're waiting for their charges but as you you know as you say it is uh a child entertainment facility also real quick though before we move on um this baby's eyes might be like the brightest blue I've ever seen oops it's pretty uh anyway so I just I felt like I had to pull oh no no no as well as the girls so someone's been playing around with yeah yeah yeah Photoshop does have limits guys yeah yeah anyway there we go moving on and a new concept in the active entertainment uh sector we'll go into this in a little bit more detail uh in sound off but fundamentally we're looking at uh minimal technology but a lot of active entertainment here uh all based around soccer or football as you'd expect me to call it uh a number of skill uh areas as well as internal courts and external uh courts um pitches for uh for the audience uh yeah I'm looking forward to having a deeper discussion about this on sound off so I won't give too many of my thoughts here um but the one thing I will call out I thought was interesting is given their current locations you know which have been international up to this point it's uh you know you've got Dubai you've got Lisbon and then they went with Orange County which I thought was very interesting obviously very dense in population but also not the the most football crazed part of the United States I would have really expected them to almost like end up in Florida somewhere um in Miami perhaps or something like that. I'm just was really surprised to see it end up in Orange County. While there is a big football contingent there it just seemed like a really interesting first U.S.

SPEAKER_04: 53:15

location I would argue Brandon you know as as the Brit that had to live out in uh California for a period of time the birth of the soccer mon can be charted around that area um you know the the uh shall we say the uh meteorization the publicity of the the uh uh the the ubiquitous uh soccer mon in her SUV I always remember having to fight uh fight those young ladies uh uh coming home from work uh fundamentally I get the feeling that they've placed this particular location very carefully here uh uh in California with some links maybe to the youth uh soccer league uh sector but again not my bully wick but uh just an observation and then finally uh Thrill House quite a large facility here 80,000 square uh going into Illinois um it is an interesting one to watch it's got quite an expensive multi uh layer uh carting track it's got the bowling lanes it's got the mini golf I think there's even laser tag in there uh if my memory serves me right but from you know if you go onto their website now and have a look at the the videos they could they captured all of the imagery for their facility at a really early stage uh while you know while drywall was being put up but uh it is clear that a lot of thought has gone into this particular facility and they're rolling forward with it in a manner that gets me to think that maybe this is the beginning of a change.

SPEAKER_06: 54:55

Yeah this is interesting because I I can't figure out for the life of me there's a there's a family entertainment center called Pirate Pete also is their website they couldn't get thrillhouse so they have to go with Excite I think so if you look up Excite Thrill House or something like that in your search engines you'll find the uh URL yeah interesting okay because yeah I'm I'm finding a pirate a pirate Pete in the area but uh you know again this is another one of those uh that just is uh a little bit bizarre to me when you see a family entertainment center of this size especially when there's already other entertainment in the area I'm going into a town like Marion which is 17,000 uh total population right and very it is uh a very light population to support an 8000 square foot family entertainment center. If they're the only thing there, okay great. But given the fact that there is already some other entertainment this does make me a little bit concerned for their longevity.

SPEAKER_04: 55:53

I I you know you you put in 80,000 square and you're expecting to have a very high uh audience uh catchment and hopefully also have that market to yourself to put it uh at that low uh number of uh well I would say mid-scale catchments you know if you pull the uh the sphere out a little bit more there's a little bit more to be gathered obviously you've got major routes from the freeways to your site but is it enough to draw that audience on a repeat visitation level I hope they've done their maths on this but this isn't just a vanity project. Well it's that time now we progress to the changes in our sector um New York had been the bastion of the what I would have called the League and Street Route arcade style venue uh the glowing screens uh sadly one of the uh Brooklyn arcades of the dying breed of Brooklyn arcades is now handing over the torture to uh the new generation you know it opened in 2013 yes 2013 uh so it isn't an old uh uh arcade by any numbers compared to some of the others that have gone recently but it was very popular with its audience again the statement from uh the family that owns uh this or should I say the family the whole group of the community that owns this kind of left it vague on what the reasons were for uh the uh the closure but again I I wish everyone well and I I know that they will be moving some of these machines to other localities around there a trampoline facility in Hull uh in the UK uh just turned around and said that they're closing and they did give a specific reason they blamed uh the rise in the cost uh to run the facility you know stating that uh the uh the local taxes and the rent for the space and all of that was impacting as well as the wage issues that they were experiencing and they also said a decline in footfall looking at this facility it was to coin a phrase the Bog standard trampoline active entertainment facility they had not uh progressed any further down the active uh entertainment it was a proven model 10 15 20 models uh years ago let's keep it the same and uh everything will be fantastic well that isn't the market that we're in at the moment and these are the results of uh not progressive 100% I would completely agree with that they were Gen 1 trampoline park and uh we haven't seen Gen 1 trampoline parks in yeah at least 10 years if not more than that 10-15 years it looks like they kept it clean that's the best I can say yeah no that's that's fair uh we also have you know I need to change it from shut and uh sale to also rebranding and restructuring because we're seeing a lot of rebranding going on in the market at the moment. Companies repositioning themselves to be more applicable to their audience or changing their core approach uh and uh wrapping a new branding around it so we have something like the Blackfoot Recreational Center uh and that has now gone uh and rebranded itself as jump in and they will have a lot more active entertainment uh focus they will also increase their amusement mix and they'll have uh some theme so they're closing uh let's see they're gonna be closing for about six or seven months while they do this transition. Uh again we're trying to get a better idea of what they're turning themselves into just out of interest.

SPEAKER_06: 59:44

Yeah that'll be interesting. It's always hard to see these community centers trying to do family entertainment or or even active entertainment. It's a hard thing to balance they're used to running community focused events and everything else and they think well we have all this extra space what if you put in some amusement what if you put Some other attractions, and we try to generate some revenue from that, and they just struggle to be able to do that because it's a very different model than like the community center model. So um we see this a lot, you know, but yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:12

At least they were honest in their statement that you know they had struggled to uh reach the capacity that they'd targeted themselves for. So obviously, if you have a target or a goal of capacity, you've done some research on what your core audience is, and uh that research has led them to pivot towards jump in and a more active entertainment law. And again, it's part of the reason why I'd like to see the thinking behind how how the reaction goes to this. And talking about rebranding, uh, and we have one of uh uh our fellow presenters who's uh jumped uh into creating Planet Novak. It's always nice to keep your name involved in that, I think. So uh it's the original uh clawcade was Cosmic Claw.

SPEAKER_06: 1:01:02

Um and it's actually yeah, yeah, cosmic clockade, actually.

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:06

Clockade. It was actually went the whole hog. Right.

SPEAKER_06: 1:01:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:10

So um I'm I'm looking forward to seeing how Clint uh takes control of this one.

SPEAKER_06: 1:01:14

Yeah. Yeah, well, um you know fortunately he we did uh either get to hear from him on guest gab, and so um you know talk a little bit about his his path. But um yeah, there's uh we didn't go into the full rebranding um on the on the guest gap, though, unfortunately. There's uh you know, we can we can talk about that later.

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:32

Okay. And then finally, one outside of our bully wig, though uh I I did report a few sound-offs ago that uh GameStop had been toy with the idea of dropping some retro arcade machines in the back of their facility. Uh, well, uh the Grim Reaper has turned up, and uh, no matter how much uh their trash stock uh endeavors have uh generated vast amounts of money for their executive board. Sadly, the people at the coalface woke up uh to 2026 to find out that a considerable number of GameStops were closing. This is a retailer uh that has been selling physical video game uh content as well as the consoles and the peripherals that go along with it. It has had an up and down roller coaster existence, even having its stock boosted uh by speculation that generated vast sums. Uh, but fundamentally, it was a broken model. Uh, and there's not a lot you could do to save this other than addressing problems. And sadly, the management team didn't want to address the problems. They just feel, you know, out of their uh considerable number, I think over 600 facilities that they ran uh in North America, they're now cutting about half, if not more, of those facilities, uh, and then they're going to restructure as well as rebrand, we we think, just uh as the board of directors were uh you know voting to give uh the executive team vast amounts of money uh if they achieve certain goals. This is just another example of uh the retail apocalypse. And when I say the retail apocalypse, I don't mean that in the sway of everybody getting destroyed. It means that those companies like uh trampoline parks that don't update their business are going to be cast asunder uh by the changes in the market. We've also seen a decline in console sales as well as in content sales in the video game sector. So this is a kind of a barometer that we can touch upon maybe when we get more information of how well Christmas was for the uh video game industry.

SPEAKER_06: 1:03:47

Yeah. This is a hard one, primarily because I I don't know, you know, it's different from an entertainment venue like the like the trampoline park we covered just a moment ago, that you know, could have updated, could have ripped out some of their attractions, put in new ones. In fact, I'm uh talking with uh with one for IntelliPlay with that they're doing that exact thing. They were a Gen 1 trampoline park and they're retrofitting their entire facility, closing down for several months to do that in order to stay relevant. And so that can happen at the attraction and and LBE and LBX level. I do struggle with like where could GameStop have gone. It's like Blockbuster, it is uh Comp USA, Circuit City. These are all as as technology shifts and moves more online and more streaming and more downloadables, more PC gaming versus console gaming, et cetera, et cetera. Um, really their model is just fundamentally broken. And when do you get out, right? When was the right time to get out? When's the right time to shut down? Arguably they probably should have closed all their stores in 2024 instead of waiting until now when they you know when they first started to close their initial stores. But this is the hard this is a hard one to pivot when you're you know so deeply embedded in the uh physical media.

SPEAKER_04: 1:05:02

This is blockbuster video writ large. And uh there were ways that blockbuster video could have saved itself. Uh the famous story of uh their relationship with Netflix that nearly was. Uh, and I feel that there's the same argument for GameStop, but I think also the management structure that they have in place uh would not have been amenable to a major shift in their core business. Uh and they're gonna sadly the uh employees are gonna pay the price for that in transients. Anyway, that gives us a rundown of uh what's happening this week in the opening and shot. If you have more information, please uh send us links via our email or via our LinkedIn, and we have some stinger reports coming out. And if I can pull my finger out in time, uh we have some entertainment social arenas in the works.

SPEAKER_06: 1:05:58

Excellent. Excellent. All right. Well, thanks, Kevin. Looking forward to the next open and shut.

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:04

See you later.

SPEAKER_10: 1:06:13

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SPEAKER_06: 1:06:45

All right. Well, coming up next, now we've got open and shut. I was open and shut. What am I saying? We have Adam Pratt with Arcade Corner talking about the EAG, and then we'll roll right into Promo Pro Tips with Chuck Damonti.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:06

Greetings, everybody. It's Adam with Arcade Heroes for the Arcade Corner here at the LBX Collective. But uh, let's get into the news of the week. Um, mainly just going to be covering EAG. But before I get into that, um did want to point out, as we're still at the beginning of the year, uh, that there are some notable anniversaries happening this year. And so this will make you feel old really quick. So let's do that before we talk about brand new stuff. Uh, so 50 years ago, before I was born, is uh was 1976. And uh while there were a number of games that nobody remembers anymore, there are some games that plenty of people still would, such as Breakout by Atari and uh Sea Wolf by Midway, which um if you haven't seen that one, it had a periscope and you'd look into it and you'd fire torpedoes at enemy boats that'd be moving back and forth across the screen. Uh Death Race by Exody, which was the very first controversial game. It actually had news reports of people freaking out about it because you were running over gremlins uh in a car. And so um that uh garnered a lot of attention. Heavyweight champ is not one that is very well known because it was very rare, but it was the very first one-on-one fighting game. It was the boxing game by Sega. Um, and kind of technically a fighting game was Knights in Armor by a company called Project Support Engineering, also super rare, um, but it was a jousting game, so one-on-one. Uh Night Driver by Atari was a very popular game. Uh Sprint 2 was uh a driving game by Atari that did extremely well. I mean, it would be on the earnings charts for years afterwards. In fact, it was it made more money than Breakout did. Um, if we go back 40 years, so you feel a little less uh old, um, but I was around uh in 1986, and I actually have a memory which I can tie to 1986 because I can remember playing outside as a kid to my mom coming out and telling me about a space shuttle that exploded, which not a very happy memory there. Um, but um I can tie that to 1986. Um, but in that year for some happier things that happened, uh Arcanoid, uh funny enough, uh is a breakout-like game, uh, or based based on breakout, but uh had uh power-ups and such, uh, and a good personality to it by Taito. Uh Taito also dominated with games like Bubble Bobble, where you played the little dinosaur guys that could shoot out bubbles and trap enemies. Uh Darius, which was a side-scrolling shooter, which did pretty well. Akari Warriors, uh Sega really showed up on the map with games like Outrun, where you could drive a Ferrari or something like it. Uh Rampage came out uh from Bally Midway, Rolling Thunder by Namco. Um, by the way, this post that I'm using as reference hasn't completely finished yet, so that's why some of the things, some elements seem to be missing. If we jump to 1996, so 30 years ago, I feel a little less old. Um, but uh Ace Driver Victory Lap by Namco, uh a fun Formula One style racing game, which is essentially in the pole position series, but for whatever reason, after pole position two, Namco just never used pole position again. Uh, they used things like uh Final Lap and Ace Driver and Ridge Racer, etc. Cruising World came out, uh GTI by Binway, GTI Club by Konami, Gunblade NY by Sega, Metal Slug came out from the SNK, San Francisco Rush from Atari, um fighting games like X-Men vs. Street Fighter, Street Fighter Alpha 2. And then 2001, which is 25 years ago, usually 25 is a nice marker, um, didn't have quite as much because this is about the time where the industry crashed again, and a lot of companies went out of business, such as Atari Games and Midway, as far as doing anything arcade related. Uh Capcom pulled out of the uh US market and such. But you have games like Arctic Thunder, uh, MoCap Boxing from Konami, Planet Harriers from Sega, Silent Scope EX, the third Silent Scope, a Star Wars Starfighter by a company called Tsunami, Taiko no Tatsujin, which recently came out in the States uh from Namco. And so, and Turret Tower, you might remember that one. Or, oh, sorry, uh also like Police Trainer 2, Police 911, Police Trainer 2 came out from Team Play, uh, Police 911 from Konami. There was a bunch of police games. There were some other ones too that came out that year. And Pump It Up uh was the first international debut of Pump It Up came out in 2001 by Andamiro. And so not quite as many games that year uh compared to the other ones that we just discussed, but a few. Now, on to the news news. Uh, we had uh EAG Expo in London this week. Now, I did not get a chance to go there and uh uh check things out, uh, but uh somebody from uh representing the arcade heroes is part of the arcade heroes team was there. His name is Ted, and uh he took um some photos. We have a post that will be going up, um, but I'm also gonna share some photos that uh were shared with me from Kevin Williams here at the LBX Collective and the Stinger Report. Um, but from what I heard, um vicariously, I guess you could say, is that uh Dance Dance Revolution World, which was at the ElectroCoin booth, obviously designed by Konami, um, but being sold into Europe through ElectroCoin, which has a long-standing relationship with uh Konami. Uh, they uh as I just went through a bunch of games from the past, uh they have a long-standing relationship too with Taito. It's just Taito's basically given up on the arcade business these days. They just license stuff out. But, anyways, uh getting a new dance-dance revolution in this cabinet that you see here, all kind of silver uh-looking, not actual silver, then uh make the cabinet cost another fortune right now, given silver prices. But uh yeah, lots of people excited about this one uh that are into the rhythm gaming scene as it's called. And so uh this is I I'll have to double check, but I think it's available now. Um Ted's caught uh some other snaps that's uh uh Furious B DX. Uh I guess my bird doesn't care about that. Uh he said this one was a little bit strange, uh, but I have to follow up with him as to what it was or ask Kevin Williams about that. That looked like that was at the JNC sales booth. Um but here, as you can see, these are photos provided uh uh by Kevin Williams, who you should all know and love, that uh is uh who was able to go and review everything there. Seems like there was quite a few simulators because I I saw uh more than one of these uh sitting around. This one called Simway, looking like it's uh doing golfing stuff, but then you also have a shooting simulator here that almost looks like it's a zombie-style shooter. And uh here's the Sega Amusements Kaizen Entertainment booth where they had what was mostly a repeat of the um uh IAPA 2025 booth, but not quite as large. Like they only have two Simon arcades as opposed to four. Um but they also had some new games such as the Neo Shuffle, which you see on the side here. Let's see if they if he got another photo of that. Um maybe I'm gonna have to do some scrolling to find so spoilers on all this stuff. I can't remember where I might have seen another one. My bird and dog are going at it. Good timing. Oh, yes, uh, Go Go Ducky was a new game that Sega introduced. And so Sega's done a few of these um kind of derby games now. Or is it a few or just two? Uh now I'm uh misremembering here. That there was the zombies ready-daddy go, which they did a few years back, um, which was a fun game and an interesting way to bring back a classic uh electromechanical physical type concept. And this one, instead of using zombies, uses what appears to be rubber duckies uh swimming in the water, and so you still roll the balls and hit them into the targets at the back, and depending on which targets you hit, then it'll make your duck swim faster. But that seems like a nice family-friendly uh version, I can imagine, where it's like a few weeks ago. I had a mom bring her uh kids in, and one of her boys just absolutely freaked out. Uh, like I've never seen anything quite like it, but because I had a zombie game in there, and he was actually even afraid of the Luigi's mansion, and he like started screaming, I need to get out of here. It was just like, oh my goodness. Um, so like some kids are absolutely terrified by uh even cute-looking zombies, and so oh well. Um, but go go ducky uh by Sega can uh uh get around those sorts of problems. But uh let's see, uh yes, here's uh Neo Shuffle, uh which is a new shuffle board concept, uh social entertaining, uh competitive socializing as we often call it. But this has camera systems up top to know exactly where the position of the shell of the pucks are, uh to uh do scoring and all that jazz from there. Um but let's head back up here. That uh as far as I know, those were the only two new debuts, the Gogo Ducky or yeah, GoGo Duck, uh Gogo Ducky and uh Neo Shuffle there. Um although, yes, I forget, uh, or I forgot that uh Sega also does represent several different brands that uh normally are represented by different companies here in North America, uh such as LAI Games, they sell their equipment into Europe, and so you had the likes of Cyberpunk 2077 Turf Wars there, and uh didn't see a photo of the all-star Ubisoft VR there, which they which they I did have at um IAPA Expo Europe last year. And then here's another photo that Kevin got of that uh Furious Speed DX game that uh Ted had mentioned was strange. Now, um not 100% sure which booth might be GNC sales, but this also looks like this could be on a different booth uh where you have marksmen. Uh now this one's called Marksman Max. Uh and a Miro USA is carrying mark just marksmen here in North America. And this game is designed by a Chinese company called Superwin. And it looks like Marksman Max as opposed to using two big screens mounted vertically. It's just using a normal uh big widescreen, probably like uh, I don't know if that's an 80-inch or something, but then it has four guns and their rifles as opposed to two pistols that the Andamiro version or the non-max version has. But it's essentially a shooting gallery game, but it does have some elements that are like other light gun shooters. Uh, there's the another shot of Dance Dance Revolution World in what's called the Universal Cabinet. If I recall correctly, it's an offline cabinet. Got some pinball there, but from that shot, it's more of these are more aisle shots, so not much we can see. Dance Show. Um, this is essentially a competitor to Sega's MyMai, which has not been released in Europe yet. Uh, I mean, Dance Show has, but MyMai has not. And so whether or not Sega's is still going to do that, I guess it depends on how well it keeps selling here in the States. Uh Step Mania X or Step Maniacs is the proper way to call it, uh, was at uh the UDC booth as it usually is, latest software, and they're still supporting that. That's been they've sold over 5,000 of those, and so it's the best-selling dance game in modern times. Got some redemption and claw machine product. Neoshot Photo Booth, which uh interestingly enough uses a uh an uh classic arcade looking cabinet uh instead of your typical photo booth setup. Uh, Band Dynamico Amusements, who also represents some different products uh, such as like the Roth Rills and uh Some others into Europe dry on amusements. They had a similar setup to their IAPA 2025 booth, but there was a game that showed up at IAPA that they had called The Future, but it was not here. But this game that you see in the corner on the left side corner, Mini World Motion was there. It's essentially like Minecraft. But this is where you could find like Top Gun Maverick and Wizard of Oz and Jackpot Racer, uh Goldstorm Pirates. Oh yeah, Godzilla Kaiju Wars DX. Here's another social competitive socializing kind of sport game called Social Rivals. Um it looks like putting with uh projection mapping. So a mixed reality putting game, that's cool. I don't think I've seen something like that before, but also you have 360 golf, which might also be so well, I guess not, because I don't see any projectors unless they're hidden somewhere that we can't see. They're almost out of time, so gonna race through here. I heard a lot of people uh talking about this robo bike setup, um, which uh interestingly enough does not have VR on it. And that's another thing that's uh a continued trend is there was just news about Meta, is it looks like they're essentially dropping their investments into VR. I mean, not completely, um, but you know, there's layoffs and they're pulling back on developments and such. And we've seen that for a while now in the arcade business, where instead of using headsets of just going back to displays and generally doing bigger displays, but you got realistic bikes on uh presumably professional style uh motion bases. Uh this one allows you if uh somebody is um disabled, then they can uh sit down in the wheelchair and still experience a bike. That's uh interesting adaptation there. Uh the Rylux coasters, I guess I'd just uh say how VR's uh not doing great, and there weren't many examples, but there we go. There is at least one example of the VR system. Uh the LED Pixel Games uh by Pixel Games uh was there. Uh UDC did have uh this was the only new thing from Ace Amusements, I was told. The Jet Ski Racer, which was not at IAPA, and then a different version of Biker's Madness with a smaller screen. Biker's Madness was at IAPA, just in a bigger uh cabinet. Somebody dancing there. Here was the pinballs, and I think this is the first time the Walking Dead remastered showed up over in Europe. Um, but as far as I know, that was it. Oh, and there is a another VR one. Uh the only other VR ones that I know of, unless I'll I say that and then I'll be scrolling through and I'll find something else here. But the Ubisoft All-Star VR and Alpha Ops VR Strike uh were on hand at the Sega booth. Um this is Benton Beck to I mean this looks like this. Oh yeah, that's right. Uh so Sega is carrying Speedrider 40X, this motorcycle game in Europe, whereas Banding Namco Mismits is carrying it in the States. And so uh I did forget that Sega had this one there, but I played this at Iapa. Fantastic graphics, um, really cool bikes, um, but as Ted had mentioned, probably very expensive. Uh Daytona Championship USA Motion Edition and the standard version of Apex Rebels. Um, more mini golf. Uh, quite a few mini golf things and other sports-related simulators to be found. Uh that essentially wraps it up. But uh thanks for watching and uh this segment, keep watching on to the next one. We'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_10: 1:23:53

Hello, and welcome to Promo Pro Tips with Chuck DiMonti. That is me. And today I want to go over three ways that local awareness actually gets built. So it is super important. I tell clients, potential clients, friends, whoever in business, it is unbelievably important that every single business starts with awareness. Okay. Now, if people aren't aware of you, how are they going to do business with you, right? There's a customer journey. I don't care the business. It starts with awareness, then it becomes consideration, okay? Consideration is like, hey, let's go there. Should we go there, right? And then they'd be hopefully become a customer. They take action on that awareness, right? And then you want to turn them to repeat customers. But it all starts with awareness, right? And you want the local awareness. I don't want people three hours away from me to know who I am, right? I want them in a 30-minute drive time to know who I am. So, how do we accomplish that? Okay, so let's discuss three ways to really get this done. First and foremost, multiple touch points. Okay, what does that mean? I want them to see your brand on social media. I want them to see your brand on an email. I want them to see your brand on an SMS text message. I want them to maybe see it as you sponsor the local team, right? Maybe in a local magazine, right? All those are different touch points, okay? So it's really important you are doing all of that. You don't want to necessarily do all of them, right? Especially if you have limited time, resources, dollars, right? But do what you can and try and stay uh on multiple channels so you have multiple opportunities to get in front of people. So not only is that expand your reach, right? That that reach being unique, right? Sort of awareness, right? One person, me, you reach me, okay? That expands your opportunities to reach somebody. It's gonna expand your impressions, right? So I could see I'm one reach, but maybe I see you on five different channels. That's five impressions, okay? And there's a lot of data that shows that and before somebody does business with you, they need five to 12 impressions, right? And the higher the impression, the higher the likelihood of them doing business with you, okay? So how do you stay in front of a lot of people and continue to stay in front of them, right? Now, once they are customers, and even when they're not, there's something called top of mind marketing, right? If you're staying in front of them, they're gonna say when they're thinking about doing something with their family over the weekend or whatever, thinking for something to do. We're human beings. We have so many things going on, especially nowadays, right? So many things uh vying for our attention. Uh, you have to stay in front of them. So they're top, you're top of mind for them. They go, Oh, yeah, I want to go to that place. Let's check it out. Let me look it up online, right? So that's the first one, multiple touch points. Number two, you should be doing digital and local. Super, super, super important. Okay. I want you to do the meta ads. They're super easy, right? Do meta awareness kind of, right? Uh meta awareness ads, right? Email marketing, you know, potentially Google ads, right? Those are a little more complex than uh some of the paid ad channels. Um, you know, search engine optimization, maybe, right? But anyways, digital ways, organic posting, okay? SMS marketing is essentially digital, okay? Um, digital channels, but plus local, right? Reaching out to the schools, doing that boots on the ground, going to attend events local to you, the the festival, the whatever, having a presence there, right? Sponsoring the local baseball team, getting your logo on there, putting, you know, potentially some some uh flyers sent out, right? That's local, okay? You need to combine the two, right? Again, the more this will open up more channels that you have to get in front of more people and get those more impressions that we were talking about in the first one with multiple touch points, okay? Now, this is a snowball effect, right? That's why we go to my third thing, consistency, okay? You can't do this for a month and be like, oh, but didn't work. You need to consistently do marketing. And a lot of FEC owners, operators, managers, I think they inherently think because they get walking traffic and it's hard for them to understand where it came from and all that. They don't really all the time, right? The good ones do understand the roles that marketing plays and the awareness that marketing plays. I think it's sort of like voodoo juju, right? But I cannot tell you how many places clients that we bring on and we make such a difference so quickly because they're a good location, but they're just not doing anything, right? They're not doing meta-eds, they're barely doing email marketing. And like, I'm not kidding, it's like in 30 days, we got more people in that place, right? Just from doing some things. And again, that's not always the case, but you know, it's it's it's it's it's more frequent than you would think. Um, so again, three ways to get local awareness, how that is actually built, multiple touch points, doing digital and local strategies and consistency, doing them consistently. So I promise you, do those three things, do them consistently, and you will grow as long as you're you're have a good operation, you will grow your revenue and your foot traffic.

SPEAKER_06: 1:28:33

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